World’s highest bridge opens in Southwest China

Chengdu – A bridge suspended above a Chinese river by more than half a kilometre has now opened to the public – becoming the highest bridge ever built.

The Beipanjiang Bridge is raised in rural area, in mountainous southwest China.

With an impressive length of 1341 meters and a cost of 144 million dollars this incredible work of engineering started being built in 2013 and was finished last Sept.

This four-lane bridge crosses directly above the Beipanjiang valley and this new route connects the cities of Xuanwei, in Yunnan Province, and Shuicheng, to Guizhou, in about an hour’s drive from more than four before.

More than one thousand engineers and technicians participated in the construction of this masterpiece that equals 200 stories high.

Before now the world’s highest bridge was the Sidu River Bridge, located in the Hubei province (centre), also in China, positioned 500 metres above a river. But the Beipanjiang Bridge is not the tallest bridge on the globe.

China is also home to several other record-breaking bridges. The world’s tallest and longest glass bridge opened in the country earlier this year.

A 430-metre-long glass bridge has been constructed across a deep canyon in China’s Zhangjiajie National Forest Park.

Zhangjiajie is a 56 square-kilometer designated tourist park inside the bigger Wulingyuan Scenic Area. It’s been open to the public since 2009 and is said to have been the inspiration behind the beautiful planet of Pandora in James Cameron’s 2009 “Avatar” film.